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Topic: my pizza made from a poolish (Read 6410 times)

after asking a question on the forno bravo forum i got a response from a sour dough baker named jay. his recommended method for pizza dough seemed a little like the anthony magieri method. jay uses a starter for his breads, the recipe that he gave me was yeast based . this was in answer of my request for a tender puffy crust. i started with 300 grams of warm water 300 grams of caputo , two grams of wet yeast .and a few ounces of old dough . this was mixed with a spoon covered and set out to rise over night. the next day 400 grams of caputo 14 grams salt and 134 grams of water were mixed for a couple of minutes and the poolish was added. the dough was mixed for eight minutes . after a one hour rise it was balled an refrigerated . i took it out 6 hours later and let it room rise for two hours as the oven heated up. this was my best dough yet .i have not seen much difference in any of the changes i have tried , until this one . the dough was tender puffy and had a different taste to it. enclosed are pics.

pizzanapoletana (Marco) once told me that poolish is not used in Naples to make pizzas. See, for example, Reply 54 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2088.msg24291.html#msg24291. Of course, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use poolish if it gives you the results you are looking for. In your case, your pizza looks quite good. However, while you said that the taste of the finished crust was different, you didn't say whether you liked it or not. Can you describe the flavor and your reaction to it?

i liked the flavor of the dough , more nutty tasting and had more of a bread chew to it . as you can see from the slice pic it was airy . i didn't know that a poolish wasn't used in naples . thanks for the past thread to read over, doesn't da michele use some old dough to flavor the new?

you are right it has a small window . overnight poolish and the mixed dough would have to be used the next day.i was able to refrigerate the balls and they didn't proof much in the cooler, the dough was still nice in the evening. if i was able i could of used it at room temp in 4 hours . i want to time a batch to see how that comes out.

no, i made it at 9 pm and mixed a t about 10 am. the weather in ohio is cold so it seemed to be at a peak not yet falling. again this is non scientific . i am sure this would have to be adjusted during warm weather. i would also try this 100 % poolish with a larger batch of dough if mt little ka mixer could handle it.

You might want to try using a total pre-ferment percentage of 25%. As for the poolish, I think, and Pete can correct me on that...you look for when it just collapses as to get the best benefits in terms of flavor.

saad, can you explain your percentages based on 700 grams of flour and 62% hydration ? i have been working all summer on different methods and so far this has worked the best for me. would testing the ph at certain times yield consistant results? 7 being neutral i think .

sadd, i was hopping you could take my recipe and tweak it based on the preferment and poolish i am using. peter in the book a16 they mention the use of old dough at da michele to add flavor and complexity to their fresh dough.

For example, if your dough has 700g of flour at 62% hydration. That's 700g (flour) + 434g (water) gives a total dough weight of 1134g. This is rough as yeast and salt aren't considered. This means, you need 25% poolish which is 283.5g. Once your poolish is done, you then mix it with the remaining 75% (850.5g) just like you did for your dough in the beginning of this thread.

The reference to yeast in the list of ingredients (Ingredients: “Type 00” wheat flour, San Marzano non-concentrate tomato sauce, cow-milk mozzarella from Agerola, seed oil, water, yeast, marine salt, basil, oregano and garlic) does not rule out the use of natural yeast, as in a Crisceto.

Also, if you look under the La Storia tab, you will see this sentence: The secret of Da Michele’s enduring success is in the use of natural ingredients, and of an old, traditional, time-tested method of leavening pizza dough. To me, that doesn't sound like they are trying to attach such high praise and honor to fresh yeast or any other form of commercial yeast.

I realize that this recipe uses both a poolish & old dough containing commercial yeast. (Or at least I'm assuming that the old dough would be from this recipe)

In this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9339.msg81033.html#msg81033, there's a discussion indicating that commercial yeast will not work for an old dough method. Why not? I thought that the resulting yeast activity we observe in our dough was the yeast propagating. Will natural yeast propagate on its own, but commercial yeast will not? Why is it working here? Probably, because with each batch we're making a new poolish with another new dose of commercial yeast? I'm therefore unclear, function wise, on the difference between natural yeast and commercial yeast.

Essentially, I think it comes down to the fact that, in general, you can't keep a commercially-leavened preferment going indefinitely, whereas, with proper management, you can do it with a naturally-leavened preferment, which can thrive in a highly acidic environment whereas the commercially-leavened preferment cannot (and may eventually be taken over by the wild yeast). Also, in his book, The Taste of Bread, Professor Calvel points out (at page 44) that you can't use the old dough method indefinitely, that is, through a large number of generations, without the danger of producing undesirable flavors. I believe that is one of the reasons why some bakers periodically make up new batches of old dough ("new" old dough preferments).